This Week in National Insecurity: Do Ask, Do Tell Edition

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Photo illustration by Adam Weinstein; Civil War by US National Guard/Flickr Commons, flag by obeeah13/Flickr Commons

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Got a debt-ceiling migraine, America? Here’s your martial medicine: All the latest developments from the national security world, sure to ease your budget deficit hangover.

The sitrep:

Remember all those social conservatives saying that if Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed, the terrorists would win? The terrorists have won.

Not all Republicans are against entitlements. Take Alabama, which still collects a special property tax on behalf of its war veterans. Its Confederate war veterans. (“Broadly speaking, almost all taxes have their start in a war of some sort,” a historian explains.)

Walter Reed Army Medical Center is closing next month. All it took to shutter the place was six years and $2.6 billion. And yet, donors are needed for this $3,500 benefit concert for the soon-to-be-relocated patients.

Back in 2007, a Marine adviser exposed how the service was ignoring troop requests for life-saving mine-resistant vehicles because they might compete with Humvees and other big-ticket items on the Corps’ wish list. The Marines responded by yanking that whistleblower’s security clearance. But now, several nonprofits are spearheading a public drive to restore the truth-teller’s job and reputation. Here’s how you can help.

Why did the freshman congressman call the senior congresswoman “vile, unprofessional, and despicable” and “not a lady”? Because THE ARMY, that’s why.

Sen. Tom Coburn has a not-so-crazy plan to cut defense by $1 trillion. Pay attention, progressives.

The bad news: Mullah Omar is not, repeat, not dead. Online rumors had him dying of a heart attack, because a Taliban leader’s two natural enemies are infidels and arterial plaque. The good news: Nothing’s more embarrassing for an insurgent than getting his website hacked, right? Right?

“Reporters Want Petraeus to Be President Real Bad.” Maybe not reporters so much as magazine layout editors. But still.

The Navy is so cash-strapped, its sailors are swapping spare parts from ship to ship to pass inspections…and more than a fifth of the fleet still isn’t ready to sail. The service is tracking the practice with a formula called the “rate of cannibalisation.” (Of course, when it comes to sailors and cannibals, Monty Python got there first.)